Sunspots and Cosmic Radiation

Sunspots and Cosmic Radiation
Governments Plan for Warming Based On Corrupt IPCC Science
By Dr. Tim Ball Thursday, February 18, 2010
There is no need for any government action on CO2, global warming or climate change. But as usual governments are making the situation worse as they waste billions preparing for warming when cooling is the future. The misdirection is caused by the corrupted science of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change particularly their omission of major solar changes. My last article identified the Milankovitch Effect, a solar mechanism excluded from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).



This article examines the second major solar mechanism ignored and identifies the machinations used to avoid or exclude the research and evidence.

Another Solar Mechanism Omitted
We’ve known for a long time about a high correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature. However, a high correlation does not mean or prove cause and effect; a mechanism is required. Early IPCC reports correctly used lack of a mechanism as the reason for excluding the subject. There was no mechanism, at least with solid scientific support, for the first two IPCC Reports. A mechanism, now known as the Cosmic Theory, was well developed when the Third Assessment Report (TAR) in 2001 was released and better documented by the Fourth Assessment Report (FAR). Although discussed briefly in TAR it was essentially ignored in FAR.

Sunspots and Cosmic Radiation
Observations of sunspots occur early with Chinese remarks from 3,200 years ago and the observations of Theophrastes 2400 years ago. Theophrastes, a pupil of Aristotle, wrote a book on weather signs; one said it rains whenever black spots appear on the Sun. However, reliable sunspot records only appear after Galileo used his telescope on the Sun in 1610.

Considerable research on sunspots identified various cycles including the 11-year Schwabe cycle and the 22-year Hale cycle. The most notable event was the period from 1645 to 1710 named the Maunder Minimum by John Eddy after the solar scientist E. Walter Maunder. Eddy’s Scientific American article “The Case of the Missing Sunspots” brought the issue to the wider public in 1977. People like Hubert Lamb, founder of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU), associated this period of few sunspots with the cold period known as the Little Ice Age (LIA) centered at the end of the 17th century.

Christensen and Lassen, published a 1991 paper in Science titled, “Length of the Solar Cycle: An Indicator of Solar Activity Closely Associated with Climate.” Work progressed with the involvement of Henrik Svensmark, and a joint publication with Christensen in 1997 titled “Variation of Cosmic ray Flux and Global Cloud Coverage - a Missing Link in Solar-Climate Relationships.” Subsequent articles appeared in 1998, 2000 and 2003 long before the IPCC deadline for the 2007 Report. Svensmark and Calder detail the history of the idea in their book, “The Chilling Stars”.

Figure 1 confirmed the relationship between cosmic radiation and sunspots in a 2006 study.


Figure 1: Relationship between Sunspots and Cosmic radiation.

For many years there was a problem because the amount of cloud exceeded the materials required for their formation. For water vapor, a gas, to condense to a liquid a nucleus is required. Sea salt and clay particles are the most common form of what are called condensation nuclei (CN). A multitude of water droplets that form are very small, which is why they don’t fall and are visible as clouds.

Cosmic Radiation and Temperature
In the Cosmic Theory cosmic radiation from space creates ions that form CNs in the lower atmosphere. The amount of cosmic radiation reaching the Earth varies with changes in the strength of the sun’s magnetic field. This variation is manifest in the number of sunspots. Many sunspots mean stronger solar magnetic field and fewer cosmic rays reaching the Earth so fewer CNs are created and fewer clouds form. More sunlight reaches the surface and the earth is warmer. Fewer sunspots means a weaker solar magnetic field so more cosmic radiation reaches the earth, more clouds are formed and temperatures are reduced. This relationship of high sunspot numbers with warmer temperatures and low sunspot numbers with colder temperatures is precisely what we see. (Figure 2)


Figure 2: Relationship between Solar activity and temperature.

The theory of cosmic radiation becoming CN (ions) has been tested in cloud chamber studies and a plot of cloud cover against cosmic radiation show high correlation for low cloud (Figure 3). Low cloud acts like a screen in a greenhouse determining the amount of solar energy entering the earth’s atmospheric system and reaching the surface. In other words, it acts in an opposite way to the greenhouse effect that determines the rate of heat escaping.


Figure 3; Relationship between low clouds and cosmic radiation.
Source: Svensmark and Calder, 2007, “The Chilling Stars; A new Theory of Climate Change”

So the low cloud acts like a screen in a greenhouse determining the amount of solar energy entering the earth’s atmospheric system. In other words, it acts in an opposite way to the greenhouse effect that determines the rate of heat escaping. Figure 4 shows the relationship between sunspot activity and sea surface temperature.


Figure 4: Sunspot numbers and Sea Surface Temperature (SST).
Source: oar.noaa.gov

But clouds are a major problem for the IPCC and their models yet they are at the heart of the Cosmic Theory so its exclusion is not surprising. BBC reporter Roger Harrabin quotes Professor Roy Spencer saying, “He thinks clouds are impossible to model at present.”

Past and Future Patterns
Sunspot activity in Figure 5 shows the variance in the 11-year cycle beginning in 1749. Low sunspot numbers between 1790 and 1825 is known as the Dalton Minimum and correlates with lower global temperatures. Decline in temperatures since 1998 that Phil Jones now acknowledges is related to the decline in sunspot numbers that began in the late 1990s. Predictions based on the reduced number of sunspots and the length of the solar cycle between cycle 23 and 24 will cause continued cooling until at least 2035.


Figure 5: Sunspot numbers showing the distinct 11-year cycle.
Source; Bruce Richardson

Better To Do Nothing Than The Wrong Thing
The IPCC was deliberately focused on establishing human causes of climate change so it failed to consider major natural causes. Chief among these were changes in the Sun. It was also deliberately directed to proving CO2 and especially human CO2 was the cause of warming and climate change. This became the basis of all government’s energy and environmental policies, which assume warming is the only possibility. A real scientific investigation would establish natural climate variability and mechanisms first, which is further proof of the political exploitation of the issue. It is better to do nothing than do the wrong thing for the wrong reason.